


Achievements

by Modlisznik



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Dave has fun with languages at Jeff's expense, M/M, Military, Tattoos, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 08:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Modlisznik/pseuds/Modlisznik
Summary: Dave is shirtless; Jeff tries not to stare. After all, it's not a good time to be distracted; he's about to get his first tattoo.





	Achievements

 

"First time against a technomancer, huh?"

"Well, yeah…"

"We have to mark you, then."

Dave was a bit tipsy; it showed in the way he walked and talked. Their first mission in the field clearly set something off in him; he tried to hide it behind his usual mask of nonchalance and sarcasm, but Jeff wouldn't be in the place he was now if he couldn't see past this. So he was keeping him company, ignoring Dave's attempts to send him to hell and waving at the bartender to keep Dave's glass full. Who knows, what an inquiring operative may overhear...

Not like Jeff would like to be near the soldier for any personal reasons. Not at all.

"Mark me? Like, with paint?"

"Yes, Rookie, with a paint. Under your skin. It's called "a tattoo". Let's go."

He didn't bother to settle the bill, of course. "Rookie is paying" was just how things rolled in the Army.

So that's how they ended up in the Slums, in the maze of identical narrow streets. Dave was leading the way; obviously, he knew this part of the town well.

"Isn't it illegal?", Jeff asked, with the naivety expected from his Jeffrey Hunter persona. "You know what they say about folks with tattoos."

"That only Rogues do it, yeah. That's bullshit, _szczypiorku_." Dave patted him on the back in a rare expression of fondness. "Just keep them under your uniform and you're fine."

"What did you call me?" Languages weren't Jeff's strongest suit. The fact that myriads of the Slums' dialects constantly changed and mutated didn't help at all.

"Whatever I want, Rookie. You see… the brass, officially they're going to frown and grumble when they'll find that someone's marked, but remember that - every officer worth even a quarter of a damn is going to be happy having an inked soldier under their command, not a barebacked wimp like you."

"Huh."

 _This may be difficult to explain later,_ Jeff thought. _Always a trouble to have something that can limit my option in the next operation. But can't really back away from this…_

_Let's just hope I won't get some infection and die._

But the place Dave has brought him to didn't look like something that people leave without infection; in fact, it looked like every cautionary pamphlet about the danger of body modifications made true. And the woman running it looked positively ancient; small and crooked, she resembled a thin-legged spider. As most women from the Slums, she was wearing a lot of faux jewelry and a sharp make-up.

Jeff wouldn't trust her with anything sharper than a sponge; let alone a needle. But Dave seemed to know her.

"Look who I brought to you."

She eyed Jeff from head to toes, then snickered.

"Szczypior?"

"Green as can be." Dave patted Jeff on the back. "But it's time for him, at last."

"If you say so, dear. What are we celebrating?"

"Little Jeff's first step of the ladder." He sounded… proud?

She nodded.

"That's a start."

Well, it was something to celebrate, after all. Even for Jeffrey Watcher, it was the first time with a technomancer.

"So, can I choose the image?", he asked. "Since it's, you know, my tattoo?"

"You're such a rookie, Rookie." Dave shook his head. "You're in the Army now, kid. You ain't choosing shit."

 _You ain't choosing much in the ASC either_ , he thought. _You ain't so special._

“You want to know what a true soldier looks like?”

With a deliberately slow movement and a very smug expression, Dave took his shirt off.

Jeff sighed.

He considered himself muscular enough, and he had met a few genuinely jacked men, but Dave was…

Dave was…

He sighed again.

“You gotta breathe, kiddo,” the tattoo artist snickered. “Or you gonna faint even before the real work starts.”

_Come on, man, focus._

Fortunately, the blush fitted Jeff Hunter's persona well enough.

_The tattoos. Patterns. It may be important. Focus._

They were on Dave’s back, just within the areas covered by the standard uniform. Mostly sharp lines and dots in columns and rows, separate for each shoulder blade; it didn't look like a work of art, more like… a register?

_There's so many of them._

On the right — X, _probably Dave's years of service_. Below, four horizontal lines and a V. On the left, symbols. Jeff recognized some: garrisons, cities, shadowpaths; one looked like a drilling worm's maw, one like…

_So many._

He could draw them from memory now; he was good at remembering things. He surely could decipher this on his own; it's some infantry code, how sophisticated could it be? It might be useful to other Watchers; not only those working undercover, but those hunting deserters too.

Still, he couldn't look away from these symbols, moving gently in the rhythm of Dave's steady breathing. _To think that someone would feel this strongly about something that happened to them that they'd have the need to mark their own skin, to harm themselves… Why? What for? They are being decorated and honored after all, they recieve medals and letters and raises — isn't this enough for them? They have to feel special? They have to create some weird secret hierarchy as a substitute for a promotion they'll never get? Don't they understand how important it is that they're all equal? Why do they have to hurt themselves?_

_Colonel wouldn't like it._

Jeff froze. _Should I…_

 _...it's Dave,_ Jeff decided. _It's harmless. Let them have it. No need to put this into the report._

“What does it look like?” he asked, his fingers an inch away from Dave's skin. “The one I'm going to get.”

“Auroran ladder.” Dave pointed a spot below his left shoulder blade. There was the Auroran crest, with the lightning in the middle, crossed by two horizontal lines. “But you're going to get only the first step.”

“For those who fought a technomancer and lived to tell a tale, right?”

“Well, we ain't inking the dead, kiddo,” the tattooist woman winked.

“That's fair. And the second one?”

“That's when you get a confirmed kill.”

“Huh.” This had to be quite a story; he'd make Dave tell it one day. “Is there a third?”

“The third…” Dave laughed. “You're too green to know about the third one, rookie.”

“Yeah, sure. Which one did you get for being a pain in the ass? This one?” He pointed at the only one symbol directly on Dave's spine: three uneven, overlapping circles.

Dave turned around so fast Jeff almost jumped.

“This one,” he growled, “when you see a soldier wearing this mark, rookie, you bow. You keep your pretty green head low, and you say your thanks that you don't know what it means, that it's them, not you, who were there.”

“I didn't mean to…” Jeff liked to mess with the poor Dave, but not this time; whatever buttons he pushed, he genuinely didn't mean to.

"Fuckin' szczypior… Sit your ass down here and shut up." He dragged Jeff across the room and towards the bed.

The machine seemed ready. It smelled like rust, rubbing alcohol and gasoline.

“Can we get started, boys?” the woman asked.

"You're going to cry like a little baby, szczypior?"

"No." Jeff could endure a lot of pain, more than Dave could imagine. But he wasn't here to show off, so he just squared up and made the toughest expression from Jeff Hunter's catalogue. "I can take it."

"Fantastic, 'cause I won't hold your hand. Now take off your shirt and smile, soldier! Soon you're going to be a different man."

 _So be it_ , he thought, feeling the first sting on his back. _Jeffrey Hunter earned his mark._

_It may be difficult to leave him behind, with his story written on my own skin._

_...Whose skin is it?_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dave's nickname for Jeff is a pun, coming from Polish phrase "zielony jak szczypior" - "green as a chive", meaning someone inexperienced; a newbie. It fits nicely with Jeff's allegedly coming from Green Hope. But it's just in a diminutive form, and may be read as a term of endearment. I just really like the idea of Slavic languages on Mars.
> 
> Many thanks for WahlBuilder for editing this fic <3 <3 <3


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